


The Sun and the Earth

by storiewriter



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Ishvalan!Trisha, Trisha's father married an Ishvalan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-19 10:19:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4742669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiewriter/pseuds/storiewriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Van Hohenheim visited Richard Elric and his family in Ishval, he didn't realize what was in store for him. </p><p>A collection of short snippets, in chronological order, from the initial meeting of Van Hohenheim and Trisha Elric onwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There were some pics of Ishvalan Ed and Al circulating the internet a while ago. This is a product of that.

The first time Van Hohenheim met Trisha Elric, her father had welcomed him into their humble home, noting casually that he hadn’t changed at all since Richard Elric had seen him last. It had been nine years. Pinako had assured him that Rick wasn’t one to judge and true to her word, he didn’t call for the people of Ishval to drive him out with pitchforks or torches. Instead, Richard had introduced him to his Ishvalan wife, Sasha, and his daughter, Trisha. The girl had just turned seven, and was an oddity in and of herself; a foot in each world, raised on a strange mix of belief in both Ishval and good old Resembool values.

            As they finished dinner, Richard roaring with laughter and Sasha quiet but rather sly at all the right moments, Trisha tugged his sleeve. He stared down into her wide red eyes, and she’d said, “You have funny eyes.”

            “Trisha!”

            “It’s no harm,” Van Hohenheim said. It was no use being offended; golden eyes weren’t exactly commonplace these days. So he smiled down at her, and said, “Yes, I do.”

            “Why?”

            He smiled again, but it was just a little tired, just a little bitter. “My parents had these eyes.” Well, he guessed; even not having known them, he knew that nobody else in Xerxes was anything other than golden-eyed, golden-haired. The voices inside him stirred and whispered.

            “You mean their eyes looked that old too? Just because?” She wrinkled her nose. “That’s weird.”

            And for the first time in a long while, Van Hohenheim was struck a little dumb.

*

            The second time Trisha and Van Hohenheim crossed paths was when she was sixteen. It was quite by accident; he’d been staying with her parents again the past week, but hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the girl. She had been busy going to school, learning the word of Ishval, and he’d been holed up in the study. Richard and Sasha had dragged him out to a small gathering, and were dancing (Resembool-style, and Pinako would have laughed at the sight of her friend kicking his legs like that in traditional Ishvalan wear). Van Hohenheim wasn’t really one for dancing—he had his little journal in his lap and a bottle of Ishvalan spirits at his side. The spirits were really for Jeremiah, but he himself didn’t mind the burn as it went down.

            He was only barely aware of warmth at his side before a voice asked, “Is that alchemy?”

            When he turned his head to look, he was suddenly nose-to-cheek with one Trisha Elric, her eyes focused on the circles and scribbles in his journal. She couldn’t read any of them—they were Xerxesian, nobody alive could read them—but she was curious nonetheless.

            Blushing from proximity, Hohenheim set down his bottle. “Y-yes, it is. Your people don’t much like it, but I’ve heard fascinating talk about the theory in the area.”

            Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her smile. “Only a few talk about it. Most say that Ishval created the earth, and it is not ours to meddle with.”

            He nodded. “I respect that. Does it bother you?”

            Shaking her head, she glanced at him sideways with a look that he was startled to recognize from Richard’s face. “I think that if Ishval did not mean for us to do such a thing, She would not have given us the tools to do so in the first place. Alchemy is a gift for the brave to do Her good will. That’s what Mother says.”

            “And what of sin?” he asked before he could stop himself. “Is Alchemy not a sin? Why would Ishval allow you the ability to manipulate the world she created? Isn’t that taking what She has already shaped and distorting it?”

            Trisha shrugged, straightened. Her hair glistened gold and orange in the firelight. “Why were we given hands? They do both bad and good. They create and destroy just as much as Alchemy, from what I understand. Why is Alchemy any different? Ishval gives us the means and the way; that does not mean that we always follow the right path.”

            He smiled, and looked at her eyes—soft, accepting. Without meaning to, Van Hohenheim said, “You might be the strangest Ishvalan I’ve had the pleasure to meet.”

            “And you’re undoubtedly the strangest man I’ve had the pleasure to meet,” she replied, and extended a hand to him. “Would you dance with me?”

            Still caught up in the fire reflected off her white hair and the unconditional acceptance in her eyes, Hohenheim lifted his sin-stained hand and let her pull him up.

*

            “Most men would ask for a daughter’s hand in marriage by this point, Hohenheim,” Rick said, grinning. Van Hohenheim sighed and stared out the window, watching an eighteen-year-old Trisha and her mother hang up the laundry. The cotton billowed in the wind, and the sun was bright and warm. There had been more mounting anger at Amestris lately, and there were a few soldiers hanging around in town.

            “Most men aren’t as old or wrong as I am, Rick,” Hohenheim leaned back in his chair. “It’s dangerous for me. I don’t know that I would ever be able to provide Trisha with a normal life, a normal family. I don’t know if it’s possible for me to have a family.”

            Rick paused before answering. “Pinako’s right, you really are a self-depreciative bastard.”

            If he were younger, Hohenheim would have bristled at that, would have burst out into angry rebuttal. Now, he just hummed. “Wouldn’t you be?”

            “Well, I don’t have to find out, do I? And that’s not the point.”

            “What is?” Hohenheim thought of the latest transfer of land to Amestris, how odd it was for a reason he couldn’t put his finger on.

            Richard Elric rapped the table and leaned down to catch the other man’s eyes. “Trisha loves you, Van. Sasha likes you, even though you’re an alchemist. _I_ like you. You’re a good man, Van, you just haven’t let yourself see that.”

            Hohenheim shook his head. “Let Trisha find somebody else, somebody who can give her a good life and age with her. I wouldn’t damn somebody to be at my side.”

            “And if she wanted to be?” The sunlight filtered in, the back door swung open, then shut. Rick kept talking. “Trisha knows that you’re…well, that you haven’t aged since she was seven. She doesn’t care.”

            “She should,” Hohenheim muttered, stared back out the window at the thick, adobe-tile roofs and the colorful cloth awnings over windows. Only Sasha remained, gathering up a basket, headscarf vibrant in the midday light.

            “Father’s right,” Trisha spoke behind him. “I don’t care.”

            He turned to look at her, but she was closer than he thought, and she slid a warm, dark hand over his cheek. He froze at the contact, his eyes lost in hers.

            “And I wish that you could see that. Please.”

            He could never say no to her. But he also couldn’t say yes. 

*

            Hohenheim had always been very careful touching Trisha. Sometimes, when fondness (love) took away his control, he would slide a hand over her shoulder, brush her white hair from her red eyes, and sometimes even hug her. Yes, she was a beautiful woman, and yes, he found himself waking in the morning from some very unrealistic dreams, but he never dared kiss her.

            So when Trisha Elric was nineteen and very purposefully trapped him against the wall of the common room before pressing her lips against his, he was startled at first. When she moved them, he couldn’t stop himself from responding. Not responding to Trisha was something he found more difficult as of late. 

            Sasha, upon entering from the kitchen and finding a very red-faced Hohenheim and a very satisfied, ruffled Trisha, merely blinked and said, “I see.”

*

            “I know you don’t want to marry me,” Trisha said very suddenly one night, as Hohenheim poured over his research. He looked up at her as she reached over and slid a hand across his back, then up and over his left shoulder.

            “I also know,” Trisha said, quiet, kneeling down beside him, her hand leaving lingering warmth as it withdrew, “that it’s not because you don’t love me, because I am rather certain that you do.”

            He turned to face her, took her hands in his. She was wearing a simple dress today—one he’d never seen before. It was thinner than the ones she usually wore, shorter.

“I do,” he said. It was odd, how easily it came out.

            She simply nodded, swept her thumbs over the backs of his hands. He’d cut one yesterday, helping out with fixing the house, and it had healed over in a blaze of soul-red lightning. Trisha had watched it fizzle and pop, then took his hand and wrapped it in a spare cloth. It was still there, white and clean and absolutely unnecessary. “I know,” she said again. “And so do Mother and Father. They both know. They both understand that you’re scared. But I…”

            In the silence, she lifted her eyes to meet his. He remained quiet.

            “I think it’s more than not aging,” she said, twining her fingers between his. “I think it may be something else. Something dangerous.”

            The souls inside him stirred at the mention of the dwarf in the flask. “Trisha, I—”

            She shushed him, pressed the back of his hand against her cheek. Looked him in the eye. “You don’t need to tell me. But I need to tell you that I am with you, all the way.”

            “Trisha, it’s,” he glanced to the side, “much more than dangerous.”

            “Hey, silly.” Gently, she pulled her left hand out of his right and reached up, turned his head back to meet her gaze. “If it is dangerous, or much more than dangerous, I understand. However, that doesn’t change my decision; I will be by your side for as long as I can be.”

            Hohenheim felt his heart thudding more acutely than he had for a long, long time.

            Trisha stood, took his face in both of her hands. “Thick and thin,” she whispered. “I trust you, Van—with everything that I am, and everything that I will be. I trust you as much as I trust Ishvala. Do you trust me?”

            As he looked up at her, dumbfounded at the idea of this wonderful, beautiful woman placing her life in his hands, his first thought was, _But I will destroy you if I hold you any closer. Why would you trust me? Run, Trisha. Run._

But his second thought was, _Yes. I trust you._

            So he lifted his hands and slid them over hers. He opened his mouth to say what he felt, but his throat tightened and he couldn’t. He shut his eyes, and took that metaphorical step away from his fear.

            He nodded.

            Trisha was quiet a heartbeat, and then another heartbeat. A rustle of clothing later, and her forehead was against the crown of his skull, her hands still on his cheeks, sliding under his glasses. “Thank you,” she whispered.

            Van Hohenheim gripped her hands a little tighter, felt the tears slide around her fingers, and thought that he was the one who should be saying those words.

*

            It was common knowledge that Ishval and Amestris, a little over a year before the turn of the century, were not on good terms. It was as common knowledge that Trisha Elric and Van Hohenheim, while not married, were very much in a committed, marital-esque relationship. Seeing as they were living together in the house of Trisha’s parents, it was assumed that this relationship was accepted, and not much was said about it.

            This assumption was taken as fact when Sasha, full of renewed vigor, went out with her barely-showing daughter to find clothes for a newborn child. It was cemented as such at Richard Elric’s crows of delight at having ‘that damn wonderful bastard Hohenheim’ as an honorary family member. And when Trisha and Van took walks through town together, his hand curled around hers, her head against his shoulder, it put the naysayers in their place.  

*

            He let Trisha choose their son’s name. She chose Edward, her grandfather’s name, and said that she’d always heard such wonderful stories about his gentle character and kind nature. She wanted Edward to inherit that, and Hohenheim thought that was a wonderful sentiment.

            He wondered, though. He hoped, yes, that Edward would grow to be a far better man than he. He hoped it with all his heart. But when he looked down at Edward’s still-red, still-wrinkly face and felt as though he was suffocating of love and wonder, he noted Edward’s golden eyes and saw traces of himself in the bone structure, the set of the nose, the ears…and he feared for Edward. His son.

            (it was such an odd idea, after centuries of self-imposed isolation. it didn’t seem real, even though Edward was surprisingly heavy in his arms, solid and real and it scared Hohenheim that he was waiting for his son to twist into nothing in front of his eyes because it would be his fault and Edward, in his grasp, would come to nothing but harm)

            “Ishvala has given us such a gift,” Trisha breathed, reaching for her son again. Hohenheim let her take the child with no small sense of relief washing over him. She pressed her lips against Edward’s forehead, and murmured something in Ishvalan, just a decibel too low for Hohenheim to distinguish.

            He reached forward, a little hesitantly, to brush a strand of limp white hair out of her face. Child still cradled to her chest with one hand, she reached up with the other and twined her fingers between his. Smiled. Looked down.

            “My little protector,” she spoke again, this time in Amestrian. “So rich in hope.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alphonse is born, and the situation in Ishval is worsening.

            “And you were worried about being able to start a family!” Richard crowed. Only two months after Edward’s birth and Trisha had been pregnant for a month already; they had just found out earlier that day. She sat nursing Edward at the table, turned away from all windows and a shawl covering her breast from view.

            Hohenheim shrugged a little. “I hope that it doesn’t hurt you,” he said to Trisha. The last thing he wanted was for his actions to put her in harm’s way; the fact that she’d promised to be by his side forever only strengthened that desire. Childbirth, he knew, was often life-threatening and he didn’t think he could forgive himself if he was the reason she was taken away. (it would never be his child’s fault, never, because they were hers)

            “Women are tough, silly man,” Sasha said, leaning over to put another serving of Ishvalan-style stuffed chicken on Trisha’s plate. “They deal with more pain and hardship than even you could imagine. My daughter is strong, she will be fine. Also, I am a midwife—I would never let my daughter die.”

            In her eyes, however, Hohenheim saw last week’s dead mother and child, the result of a too-short pregnancy and not enough nutrition. He saw the fear and the conviction warring as she pushed the food off the serving fork with a knife and left no grain of rice behind.

            “There’s also the matter of how things are shaping up around here…” Richard said. The mood at the table became solemn. He turned to Trisha, took her hand in his. “If the situation between Ishval and Amestris goes sour, I want you to leave.”

            Trisha frowned. “Leave? My homeland?”

            “Yes,” Rick said. Hohenheim remained quiet; they all knew that he would do anything to keep Trisha and their children safe. “I’ve arranged with Pinako Rockbell to take you in if need be—you will be sheltered there.”

            Swaying a little from side to side to calm Edward, Trisha set down her fork and pulled her hand from under Rick’s. “Father, you keep saying ‘you.’ What does that mean? That _you’re_ staying?”

            “Child,” Sasha said, and leaned across the table, hand reaching for Trisha’s. Trisha flinched away, and Sasha halted her motions. “I am a midwife. I can help people. But I don’t want you to stay here if it comes to fighting—you are too precious for that.”

            “And you’re _not_?” Trisha was quite visibly on the verge of tears.

            “Not as much as you are,” Rick said. Sasha glared at him, hissed ‘not now!’, but the damage was already done; Trisha’s eyes had gone wide in shock.

            Hohenheim reached a hand out to soothe her—she batted it away. Edward, pulled from his mother’s teat, began to wail. Trisha stood, chair scraping back and falling over as she handed Edward to Hohenheim. He did not fumble, but set his son against one shoulder and bounced in his seat, staring up at his wife. Edward screamed in his ear and waved a hand around, hiccupping and burping up strings of milk. It was not the most pleasant sensation, Hohenheim thought. He patted his child’s back, but was afraid he might break Edward like the most fragile blown glass.

            “You’re my parents!” Trisha cried in Ishvalan. “The ones who brought me into the world by the grace of Ishvala herself! How could I simply abandon you?”

            “You cannot think of it that way!” Sasha yelled back, also in her native tongue. “We are your parents, we do not want to see you die. But our duty is here, to our people!”

            “They’re my people too!” Trisha slammed a hand on the table, tongue forming syllables so sharp, Hohenheim could feel their edges. Edward howled, but this did not distract Trisha.

            Rick stood. “But they are not your duty!”

            “Then _what is my duty,_ if not to my parents or my people _?_ ” She screamed, fists clenched  at her sides, and the silence after rang loud enough that it stunned Edward into whimpers.

            “Your children,” Sasha whispered, head down, hands in her lap. “Your children. Your man. Your _future_.”

            “But…” Trisha looked as though she might wobble, her eyes wide. Hohenheim braced himself to catch her. It would be hard, with Edward in hand, but he would do it.

            “Listen, Trish,” Rick said, taking a step over and cradling his daughter’s face in his hands. “My daughter. My beautiful daughter. You are grown, and Ishvala dictates fidelity to one’s parents. But before that fidelity should come dedication to one’s own family.”

            Tears fell down Trisha’s cheek, and Hohenheim stood as well, slow and careful in his actions. He glanced over at Rick, who nodded.

            “We have lived far longer than you or your children, daughter,” Sasha said, still glancing down at her hands, “and their lives should be your priority. You, and Hohenheim, and your children—I have seen too many fatherless or motherless children grow, and I have no desire for that to happen to my grandchildren.”

            Hohenheim stepped forward, opened his left arm up to Trisha. He said nothing, just stared into her eyes, one hand wrapped around a whimpering Edward.

            She looked back at her parents, went to take comfort from her father, but Rick stepped back. “We will always be here for you, Trisha,” he said. “But you cannot choose to stay with us if the fighting breaks out. I’m sorry.”

            Van Hohenheim watched her half-reach a hand out to her parents before it dropped down to cradle her stomach, not yet showing from their unborn child. She whirled suddenly and buried her face in Van’s chest, teeth gritted and arms wrapped tight around his torso. He met her parents’ eyes over her head. They were both crying, but resolute.

            He nodded at them. Trisha would be safe.

*

            By the time their second child was born, both Hohenheim and Trisha rarely left the house; Hohenheim because of his odd coloring, Trisha because of both her pregnancy and her parents’ unwillingness to expose her to the delicate situation outside. Amestrian troops had been stationed in Ishval for ages, and tensions had skyrocketed.

            This birth, to say the least, was not easy. Trisha’s screams were hoarse and harsh, and Edward’s cries made nothing easier. Hohenheim had been trying to soothe him for the past thirty minutes without any avail, and the noise generated did not go unnoticed. The soldiers started pounding on the door (that he’d been meaning to fix for the past two weeks, but had been distracted by his research and a growing unease with _something_ horribly naggingly familiar in the bloodshed common to countries founded as Amestris had been) and yelling.

            “Hey! What’s going on in there!” There’s a tang in the accent that Hohenheim hesitantly placed as Western. He hadn’t spent much time there.

            Rick, of course, answered the door, tan and going grey at the temples but undoubtedly Amestrian himself. “I apologize for the commotion. My daughter is currently giving birth, and her son is distressed.”

            “Are you sure everything’s all right?” The voice was smooth, more Southern than Western. It was, Honhenheim noted, also calmer than her companion’s. “She sounds to be in unusual pain.”

            As Richard answered—excuses about the situation and stress causing complications in the pregnancy—Hohenheim stroked Ed’s back again, bent his head down by his son’s ear, and tried to hum one of the little ditties that Trisha liked to sing to her children. Amazingly, despite Hohenheim’s admittably off rendition, Edward began to quiet. One of his hands fisted around Van’s vest, and the Xerxesian brushed a kiss on top of Edward’s white-fuzzed scalp.

            “That sounds awful, I’m so sorry,” the Southern woman said. “Jackson, don’t be so wound up; she can’t help it. It’s not like they’re torturing anybody in there.”

            Edward whimpered at Trisha’s next cry, and Hohenheim started tracing a circle around the edge of the living room rug, bouncing and taking small steps.

            “You’d know better than I would, I suppose,” the Western man—Jackson—said. “Being a woman and all.”

            The Southern woman snorted. “Do I _look_ like I’ve given birth? Sorry to disturb you mister…”

            “Elric,” Rick replied, and Ed’s eyelids—though drooping—remained at half-mast. Trisha let out another awful cry, and Hohenheim cursed with all his being that he had been banned from helping his wife because of Ishvalan tradition.

            “Good day to you, Mr. Elric. May this peace last.”

            “May this peace last,” Rick echoed.

            From upstairs, Trisha sobbed out a scream, and Hohenheim thought that if this was peace, then war would truly be hideous.

*

            Trisha loved her second son, but she insisted that it was only fair that Van be allowed to name the second child. He was, at first, at a loss—how could he attach meaning and name to a beautiful, wonderful boy that, though he too has Van’s golden eyes, is more Trisha around the shape of them?—until one of the souls, Annalise, whispered up the name of her own unborn child.

            “Alphonse,” he echoed, soft and solemn. “Alphonse, of noble heart and soul.”

            There were thick, dark shadows under Trisha’s eyes. The red should have been striking against such a contrast, but they were watery and tired, and he’s afraid for her. “Alphonse,” she whispered, and smiled. “It is fitting.”

            Hohenheim did not fear for the child in Trisha’s arms as much as he did the child in his own, but even that slowly faded as he stared at the white shock of hair on Alphonse’s head. His child. His second child. And Trisha, holding him, tired and exhausted but alive.

            He’d never been so happy to be alive.

*

            Sasha told him that a third child might cause even more complications for Trisha, especially one so soon. Van Hohenheim was reminded that his wife, that his children would one day die.

            As Trisha lay in the spare room, Edward and Alphonse finally asleep, Van Hohenheim burned the candle in the study into a pile of tallow on the wood desk, choking back tears and trying desperately to think of some way, of any way to become mortal again.

*

            Dinner that November night was the usual affair; a bit of rice, a spoonful of beans, and some chicken for Trisha, bartered with Sasha’s heirloom headscarf. “It is not like I wore it anyways,” she’d said as she cooked the rather sad bird in oil and the last of her spices. “Too fancy; where will I find an occasion for it?”

            Trisha ate quietly, eyes dry of tears but still raw from that morning, when she’d begged and pleaded with her parents to just come with them. Hohenheim bounced Ed on his knee as three-month-old Al slept in the basket by Rick’s legs. Rick was eating left-handed, as Al had a firm grip on his grandfather’s thumb.

            “The northwest border is still rather relaxed,” Richard spoke up. “You should head there, and then further east. Pinako knows you’re coming.”

            Trisha nodded, heavy bags under her eyes. She didn’t say anything. She’d already said enough when Richard had shown her the passes he’d obtained for the four of them.

            Hohenheim hummed, and slid his mostly-full bowl towards Trisha. She accepted with a thin hand, and he pressed his lips together. He felt as though he was forgetting the sound of her laughter. “How is Pinako?”

            “Well. She’s received another shipment of automail parts, and her son and daughter-in-law have been keeping busy, what with her granddaughter and the local practice…”

            But he couldn’t stop thinking of Trisha and her tired eyes and the way her hands were hesitant and limp. He glanced at her, the way her hair was unkempt, and felt like she was coming undone and he had no way to help her.

*

They made it through the border quickly and without fanfare; the moment the border guard had seen the two children Trisha and Hohenheim held, and the small cart Hohenheim dragged after him, Hohenheim saw a flicker of understanding cross the man’s face.

            “Welcome to Amestris,” he said, stamping their passes. Hohenheim smiled, and it felt tight on his face. He glanced at Trisha next to him, but she was looking behind them, her pashmina drawn up above her head and Alphonse cradled at her breast. The exposed wrist was thin and Hohenheim had to forcibly keep the smile on his face.

            “Thank you,” he said over Ed’s head, accepting the passes and tucking them into the inside pocket of his coat. He hefted the handles to the cart in his hands, and took a few steps forward.

            The border guard stepped with him. “Resembool, right?”

            Hohenheim stopped and nodded. “Yes, we have friends there.”

            “I…” the border guard nodded to himself, and stepped back. “That’s good. Just be careful.”

            Hohenheim studied the border guard. He committed the round face to memory, the stubble running up the sides of his chin, the dark brown eyes and dirty blonde hair. “If you don’t mind me asking, what’s your name?”

            “Private Schiller, sir.” The border guard smiled. He couldn’t be more than eighteen with a smile like that, Hohenheim thought. He was practically a child. And with war brewing on the distant horizon behind them…

            Hohenheim closed his eyes. When he opened them, he took one last look at the young man and said, “Nice to meet you, Private Schiller. Thank you for the advice.”

            “Of course, sir!” Private Schiller said, and he turned to the people behind Hohenheim’s family. “Next please!”

            Hohenheim hefted the handles of the cart again and moved forward, Ed strapped to his chest and Trisha following quietly, too quietly, beside him.

He tried not to think about how kind Private Schiller would fare in the war to come.

*

            They were almost to Resembool when Trisha stopped in the middle of the path, dropped to her knees, and started howling at the ground.

            Hohenheim didn’t think twice about setting down the cart and dropping down next to her. He cradled her in his arms, drew her head to his shoulder. He smoothed down her pashmina, but didn’t say a word.

            Trisha howled and screamed, hands fisted in his coat collar and tugging at it. She screamed herself until she was hoarse and continued to cry even after that, great hiccupping noises that filled the fields around them for miles and miles.

            Alphonse woke in her arms, and so did Edward, and they joined in the cacophony, their high-pitched wailing layering over hers, and Hohenheim simply tried to hold his family together.

            “They love you Trisha,” Hohenheim murmured, eons later when Trisha was reduced to a series of dry, staccato croaks. “They love you, they love Edward and Alphonse, and to them you are more than the sun, more than the moon, more than the earth.”

            “I am a horrible daughter,” Trisha moaned into his shoulder, but she’d begun to rock Alphonse back and forth. He began to quiet, though Ed insisted on proving how capable his lungs were. “What daughter leaves her mother, her father, behind to die? _O Ishvala, the light on the sand and the halo upon the stars, I have wronged, I have sinned. Punish me. Punish me._ ”

            “No, you have done no wrong,” Hohenheim said. He pulled back from Trisha, cupped his hand around her cheek. “Look at me, _dearest to my heart_.”

            At the clunky Ishvalan syllables on his tongue, Trisha looked up. Her eyes were raw and glistening in the mid-afternoon sun, face tracked with tears and snot and he hurt to see her like this.

            “This was the choice of your parents,” Hohenheim said. He cupped her other cheek, wiped away the tears with his thumbs. “You are at no fault.”

            “I should have begged them harder,” Trisha murmured.

            Hohenheim shook his head. “No. You have Alphonse. You have Edward. Is a war zone any place for a child?”

            “It’s no place for my elders, either.” Trisha was quieter than before. She wasn’t looking into his eyes and Hohenheim worried.

            “No,” Hohenheim said. “But you must respect their wishes. They may yet get out, they may yet survive, the war might not even occur. But in the meantime please—for them, for your children, for yourself most of all, _live_.”

            Trisha looked back at him. Her gaze travelled down from his to the child strapped to his chest, a swatch of shockingly white hair and a pair of wide golden eyes. He was still crying.

            She reached her free hand out, slowly, and then stroked Edward’s hair and face as though she were seeing him anew. Her eyebrows tilted up, and she let out a small _oh_. “Hush, dear. Hush. Everything is all right.”

            Edward began to calm. One hand reached up and latched onto her finger, and for the first time in forever, Hohenheim saw Trisha smile. It was tired and sorrowful, but there was a hint of Trisha in it that made Hohenheim hope.

*

            He set the wagon down at the bottom of the stairs. Edward and Alphonse had fallen asleep, the former more stubbornly than the latter, and the sun was dipping down into the horizon. The golden light spread across the landscape, turning everything it touched into reds and oranges and yellows. It was easy to pretend that the hills were dunes out in the desert; the dunes surrounding Trisha’s home, the dunes surrounding Xerxes, the dunes he’d woken up to every morning of the best part of his life.

            Hohenheim stretched, hands on his back. “That was heavier than I thought it would be,” he said, looking at Trisha. Her profile was illuminated by the low sunlight before she turned, visibly exhausted but more alive than she’d been the past few days.

            “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have helped.”

            “Aaah, don’t be,” Hohenheim said. “Your mother would kill me if I’d let a woman still recovering from a difficult pregnancy pull a cart even a quarter of the distance we travelled.”

            Up at the porch, the inside door opened and there was Pinako. She was shorter and older than he remembered, though Hohenheim figured that was to be expected.

            “Ah! There you are! We’ve been expecting you for ages!” Pinako opened the screen door as well and set down the steps, wiping her greasy hands on a grungy apron. She looked up at the both of them, then socked Hohenheim in the leg.

            “Ow!” He stepped away, one hand cradling Edward so that he wasn’t jostled so much. “What was that for?”

            “Good to see you again, you old geezer,” Pinako said, grinning wide. She turned to Trisha, looked her up and down, and extended her right hand. “Nice to finally meet Richard’s precious daughter! Name’s Pinako Rockbell, Automail.”

            Trisha hefted Alphonse and returned the greeting, sliding down to her knees so that she was on eye-level with Pinako. “Good to meet you, Pinako Rockbell. I am Trisha Elric; my father sends his greetings.”

            Pinako laughed. “Man, his daughter turned out better mannered than he ever was! Let’s get you settled; it’s been a long trip, I’m sure.”

            “That it has,” Trisha murmured. She stood and bowed. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

*

            “So what’re their names?” Pinako asked Hohenheim and Trisha, the children set up in small cribs with Pinako’s grandchild, Winry.

            “Edward, protector rich in hope,” Trisha said, leaning against Hohenheim. “Alphonse, of noble heart and soul.”

            Urey, Pinako’s son, nodded. “They sound like strong names. We just chose Winry because it sounds nice.”

            Trisha smiled. “Winry. It sounds beautiful.”

            Sarah leaned across the table and slid her hands around Trisha’s free one. She looked into Trisha’s eyes, and said, “Feel free to stay as long as you need—we’ll help you find a home and get you settled in, never fear.”

            “Thank you,” Hohenheim said. “It means the world to us that you were willing to do this.”

            Pinako scoffed. “No thanks necessary! Old man like you, finally settling down and having kids? I want you where I can keep an eye on you! This is just so I can do that.”

            “Mom!” Urey hissed, but his eyes were filled with mirth. He opened his mouth to say more, but Trisha let out a sharp burst of laughter.

            “My everlasting thanks for your assistance,” she said. “I will keep you in mind, just in case he wanders off and I cannot find him.”

            Hohenheim couldn’t even protest, not when Trisha was smiling and laughing. He hates himself for thinking it, but he couldn’t help but believe right then that they had made the right choice; for their future, for Trisha’s future, for their children’s future. Things would—things would be okay.

            They would be okay.


End file.
